🐊 “4th-and-Pickle” — Gatorade’s picklejuice plan. ChatGPT’s chief-of-app. Spunge’s sneaker disruption. +150 Friend Rule.

Summary

The Best One Yet – “4th-and-Pickle” — Gatorade’s Pickle Juice Plan. ChatGPT’s Chief-of-App. Spunge’s Sneaker Disruption. +150 Friend Rule.

Date: October 9, 2025
Hosts: Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell

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Episode Overview

Today's episode dives into three pop business stories — each a real-world ripple shaping category titans:

1. Why Gatorade's next big innovation could be … pickle juice
2. How OpenAI’s ChatGPT is poised to kill the app (not just the website)
3. The barrier-breaking launch of Spunge, a new sneaker brand from a designer who snubbed Nike

PLUS: The science-backed max number of friends your brain can actually handle, and lightning bonus stories on Amazon’s prescription kiosks and a new fashion collab from Cheetos.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Friendship Frontier: The 150-Friend Rule

[01:36–03:00]

• Science says: Your brain can truly manage only 150 friends — a result from a BYU study.
• Breakdown: Within that 150, 10 friends (“the Tenacious 10”) take up 60% of your friend time.
• Energy costs: “Yeah, the brain uses 2% of our body weight, but uses 20% of our energy.” — Nick [01:58]
• Practical upshot: If your friendship circle exceeds 150, it’s okay to put up boundaries — “The fire department says I can’t handle one more person.” — Jack [02:43]

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Story 1: Gatorade’s Pickle Juice Threat

[05:17–09:25]

• Pickle juice enters the sports arena: What started as a college bar “pickleback” is now the go-to cramp cure for athletes of all levels.
• Mainstream moment: NFL trainers (49ers, last Sunday, 90 degrees) served players pickle juice on the sidelines, live on TV. “Three shots of pickle juice and a banana and that charley horse is gonna go away.” — Jack [06:20]
• Enduring problem: Gatorade’s market share drops from 80% to 60% [07:19]; competition isn’t from other sports drinks, but from salty electrolyte powders and, now, pickle juice.
• Business case: Gatorade should make the unofficial (pickle juice) official — “You know it’s the 60th birthday of Gatorade... Gatorade should lean into novelty with pickle juice.” — Nick [07:57–08:08]
• Bigger lesson: Great products are often “observational inventions” — things people already do before brands package them. Examples:
  • Gillette Venus razors (for women borrowing men’s)
  • Uncrustables (parents removing PB&J crusts)
  • Skinny Confidential’s ice roller (from grandma’s ice trick)
    “These aren’t accidental inventions. These are observational inventions.” — Nick [09:15]
• Takeaway: “The real world is your lab. You don’t need R&D. You simply need observation.” — Jack [08:16]
• Action point: “Gatorade, we think, should respond to the pickle juice trend by putting it in a bottle and slapping the Gatorade logo on it.” — Nick [09:22]

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Story 2: ChatGPT Kills the App

[09:47–13:47]

• New feature: You can now use DoorDash, Zillow, and Spotify inside ChatGPT, without leaving the chat window.
• Why it matters: This isn’t just “answer engine optimization” (AEO) for websites anymore; apps themselves now have to live inside chatbots to reach users.
• Scale shift: “OpenAI has 800 million weekly users and it’s growing every day.” — Jack [12:42]
• Power shift: “Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff.” — Jack [13:01]
• User experience explainer: Instead of going through multiple steps and apps ("It took me twelve steps and three and a half minutes just to execute a simple pizza order"), now one chat command does it all.
• Developer gold rush: OpenAI’s public developer kit lets any app/company integrate. “This is OpenAI’s platform play.” — Jack [12:10]
• Platform analogy: Like Facebook’s 2007 app ecosystem (Farmville, etc.), but for AI assistants.
• Business impact: “Apps have no choice, basically no choice. ChatGPT is simply where the customer is and you gotta be where the customer be.” — Nick [12:49]
• New lingo:
  • AE O – Answer Engine Optimization
  • B2A – Business-to-AI
• Takeaway: “Your chatbot is becoming your chief of staff. Human experts in Google search… used to be the gatekeepers… but soon, your chatbot will be the ultimate gatekeeper.” — Jack [13:47]

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Story 3: Spunge — The New Sneaker Disrupter

[16:10–20:29]

• Who? Salehi Bembury, designer with a cult following (Crocs, New Balance, Versace collabs), launches his own brand, “Spunge,” after turning down a job at Nike.
• Product: The debut sneaker “Osmosis” features a coral reef-like inner sole and a molten lava textured sole, in Mother Nature-inspired colors.
• Why it’s rare: Barriers to entering footwear are massive (“The shoe is often cited as the most complex part of the entire fashion industry because it is more engineering than it is style.” — Nick [18:08])
• Historical context: Few true new sneaker brands have launched in the last decade.
  • Hoka & On (2009/2010)
  • Allbirds (2016)
  • Spunge (2025)
• Career arc (mini-motivational): Salehi rose from Payless to Cole Haan to Yeezy, made a name through collabs, and eventually got the clout (and Instagram following) to build his own brand.
• Takeaway: “Salehi Bembury climbed the career ladder in other people’s sneakers. Now he’s at the top wearing his own.” — Nick [19:37]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On friend limits: “Because unlike in calculus, the limit in friendship does exist.” — Nick [01:40]
• On energy and friendship: “Our bodies can handle more buddies, but our brains can't take another Jam or another Blaine, my friend.” — Nick [02:05]
• On Pickle Juice: “Pickle juice is not just trending among hardcore athletes. It’s now the unofficial sports drink of the NFL. Which is awkward for the official sports drink of the NFL: Gatorade.” — Nick [06:45]
• Innovation lesson: “You simply productized what consumers were already doing.” — Jack [08:38]
• On ChatGPT as a platform: “This is OpenAI’s platform play.” — Jack [12:19]
• On the future of apps: “Apps have no choice... you gotta be where the customer be.” — Nick [12:49]
• On new brands in footwear: “It’s engineering. But Benberry is going for it… Like Phil Knight did launching Nike 61 years ago.” — Jack [18:30]
• On climbing the ladder: “Salehi is a case study in climbing the career ladder in other people’s sneakers. Now he’s at the top, finally wearing his own.” — Jack [20:25]

---

Supplemental: Other Stories & Best Fact Yet

• Amazon’s next move: Prescription vending machines at One Medical clinics. [21:43–21:56]
• Cheetos collab: Kenneth Cole x Cheetos pants with Velcro hip panels for wiping fingers — “the napkin has been disrupted.” [22:01–22:29]
• Fun Fact: The Queen and King towers in Sandy Springs, Georgia, are the tallest suburban buildings in the U.S. — 570 ft and 553 ft (supplied by listener Dylan Steinfeld). [22:44–23:11]

---

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [01:36] The “150 Friends” Rule
• [05:17] Gatorade & Pickle Juice Story Start
• [08:16] Gatorade Takeaway
• [09:47] ChatGPT Kills the App — Story Start
• [13:01] ChatGPT Chief-of-Staff Takeaway
• [16:10] Spunge Sneaker Disruption Story Start
• [19:37] Spunge/Entrepreneurship Takeaway
• [21:11] Lightning Round: Amazon Vending Machines & Cheetos Pants
• [22:44] Best Fact Yet: Tallest Suburban Towers

---

Summary Takeaways

• Gatorade should act on the “real-world lab” — productize pickle juice, which already has market fit with athletes.
• Apps are getting subsumed by AI assistants; OpenAI’s ChatGPT is quickly evolving into everyone’s digital chief of staff.
• Spunge proves that, even in industries with high barriers, career climbing + clever branding = breakthrough. Salehi Bembury is now “wearing his own sneakers.”
• And, no matter what, you can only have 150 real friends. Don’t feel bad about boundaries.

---

Flow, insight, and plenty of puns—just another classic morning with Nick and Jack.

Transcript

[A]

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, October 9th, and today's pod. Out of all the pods, this pod is the best one yet. It's a T, boy.

[B]

The top three pop business news stories you need to know today.

[A]

Daddy's big news. Tomorrow after the show, Jack and I are interviewing the iconic founder of Outdoor Voices, Ty Haney. The Tai Haney.

[B]

We're gonna publish that interview next week. So DM us today the questions that you think we should ask her.

[A]

She basically invented athleisure, so, you know, we got a lot of questions going, but if you got a question, hit us up, send us a voicemail. We'll get it on the pod.

[B]

Also, sorry to those we couldn't give SORA invites to. We got invite by 6:01am yesterday, we had like 20 requests for our Sora codes.

[A]

We only had like two invites each, so we were sorry we couldn't get them to everyone. But in the meantime, Jack, we got three fantastic stories for today's T boy.

[B]

What do we got on the pod? For our first story, runners, bikers, and NFL players are all drinking pickle juice. Pickle juice is becoming the unofficial drink of athletics.

[A]

And that is a threat to Gatorade, which needs to get out of the lab and look in real Life.

[B]

For our second story, it's the latest big thing from OpenAI. You can now order DoorDash or search Zillow within ChatGPT.

[A]

First we said chat would kill the website, but now chat is killing the app.

[B]

And our third and final story. For the first time since Allbirds, we're covering the launch of a brand new sneaker company.

[A]

If you want to see the future of sneakers besties, then you need to know about Sponge. But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, I mean, what a tease. What a mix. Love the pod today, Jack.

[B]

What's the real number of friends you can actually squeeze into your life? It's 150.

[A]

150. Because unlike in calculus, the limit in friendship does exist.

[B]

150 friends is the maximum number of friends the human being can handle.

[A]

Call it the friendship frontier. Do not venture beyond it.

[B]

And it's all according to a new study from Brigham Young University. And the limiting factor, it's our brain.

[A]

Yeah, the brain uses 2% of our body weight, but uses 20% of our energy.

[B]

Our bodies can handle more buddies, but.

[A]

Our brains can't take another jam or another Blaine, my friend.

[B]

Now, 150 people. That's a lot of people. You're not calling that many people to see what they're up to this weekend.

[A]

I can't even make up 150 names on the spot. Jack.

[B]

So within the 150, there's actually 10 friends with whom you spend 60% of your friend time.

[A]

Jack and I call these 10 the tenacious 10, if you will.

[B]

And odds are you're texting today's podcast to one of those tenacious ten about this story.

[A]

Oh, you definitely got a fantastic Tenacious Ten text chain. Jack. Jack.

[B]

But yetis, remember the rule of friendship. The max capacity is 150.

[A]

So, besties, if someone's trying to be your buddy today and you're just not vibing with him, you can just say, hey, I'm sorry.

[B]

The fire department says I can't handle one more person.

[A]

By the way, our buddy Timmy, he was friend number 63 for us.

[B]

Is he dropping in the rankings or is he climbing, dude?

[A]

Nah, I've been keeping track the whole time, man. Yet he's. Let's hit our three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is the norm. Jack.

[B]

Nick. That's it.

[A]

I don't even think they need to practice.

[B]

50%.

[A]

That's a fat tip. T boy city on your at Liz. If you know, you know. Cause we read to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor.

[B]

AT&T Business. Yetis.

[A]

Starting your own business, it ain't easy. When we first got our daily newsletter off the ground that led to this podcast a decade ago, we definitely did not get everything right.

[B]

Remember, we initially bummed WI Fi off of hotel lobbies.

[A]

Classic move.

[B]

And then the concierge kicked us out. So coffee shop free WI Fi became our godsend. Another latte shout out to all the small business cafe owners. Your WI Fi is the real hero.

[A]

Oh, what's the code to the bathroom again? Honestly, if we could do it all over, we would probably invest in our own less bootleggy Internet.

[B]

If you need to connect your small business, you need AT&T business. They make connecting easy. Actually, they make so many things easy.

[A]

Which is the main thing you want in a provider. Less time stressing, more time for you to work on your business.

[B]

And yetis, there's never enough time.

[A]

So start a business, live your dream, and wake up to the power of ATT business. Business.att.com Airbnb Yetis, full disclosure. We're already thinking about holiday vacation. You got to book these things early these days. Are you kidding?

[B]

I booked my holiday vacation, like, six months ago. I do it like the Germans right after my Christmas vacation. I book next year's Christmas vacation for 2028.

[A]

Okay, but also, full disclosure, Eddie's. I'm jealous here because I'm paying for my whole trip. But, Jack, you have money from your Airbnb helping pay for yours.

[B]

It's my side. Hustle, profit, puppy, besties.

[A]

You can host your entire place or just your extra space.

[B]

Really satisfying feeling, by the way, when my guest messages me that their first night went wonderfully, it just puts me at ease. And it's like, wow, I am making money right now and somebody's having a great time.

[A]

So you're going to give a day away for free?

[B]

No, I wouldn't say that.

[A]

Yet. He's your home might be worth more than you.

[B]

Find out how [e-mail] host.

[A]

For our first story. Gatorade is losing market share, but we think we've got the solution. And the solution is pickle juice.

[B]

The best way for Gatorade to innovate right now is to look at what people are already doing now. Yetis.

[A]

When Jack and I were back in college, there was a cool new drink order you could throw out at the bar.

[B]

And Jack, what was that?

[A]

Drink order?

[B]

Not Nickelback.

[A]

Pickleback.

[B]

They served you two shots. One had whiskey, the other had pickle brine. You drink the whiskey first, you follow it with the pickle.

[A]

That was back when Jack and I were roommates. But today, athletic gen zers are pounding entire glasses of pickle juice straight up.

[B]

And they're not doing it to get tipsy. Ironically, pickle juice is now a health drink, not a Hennessy chaser.

[A]

Besties, runners, bikers, berries, boot campers. They're all swinging their own pickle juice as a salty solution to stop cramps.

[B]

In fact, pickle juice just had a mainstream moment. It did on the gridiron on Sunday.

[A]

Okay, Jack, watching the 49ers game in San Francisco last Sunday. 90 degrees. But the sideline was stocked with pickle juice. It was overflowing.

[B]

The athletic trainers on the 49ers served the quarterback, Mack Jones, a bunch of pickle juice shooters while the cameras were running. £3 shots of pickle juice and a banana. And that charley horse is gonna go away.

[A]

Ah, nature's electrolytes. So, besties, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about the story. Pickle juice is not just trending among hardcore athletes. It's now the unofficial sports drink of the N. Which is awkward for the.

[B]

Official sports drink of the NFL. Gatorade.

[A]

Totally. Gatorade, as it's also pronounced, which is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. As we've mentioned before on this pod.

[B]

It was invented on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville, hence the name Gatorade.

[A]

These professors created Gatorade to aid the football team, and then NFL teams started ordering it up nationwide.

[B]

But Gatorade's not independent. They got acquired by quaker oats in 1983, which got acquired by PepsiCo in.

[A]

2001 for a not too shabby 13 billion bucks, but. I'm sorry. Jack paused the pod flag on the field.

[B]

Gatorade's market share in the sports beverage category has fallen from 80% at its peak to 60% today.

[A]

And the problem for Gatorade isn't Powerade body armor or all those rumors about yellow five ingredients.

[B]

Yeah, don't get the lemon lime.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no, no. The risk and threat to Gatorade is salty electrolyte powders that are disrupting the sports drink market.

[B]

It's Gatorade, Frost. You're drinking after Pilates. You're sipping Liquid IV or element in your enormous Stanley mug, and there in.

[A]

Lies the opportunity that we think Gatorade can seize on. Pickle juice. Pickle juice. There it is.

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

You know it's the 60th birthday of Gatorade, Jack. Like, you could make the case. Gatorade should lean into nostalgia right now.

[B]

Right, but we think Gatorade should lean into novelty.

[A]

Exactly. With pickle juice, make the unofficial drink the official. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Gatorade?

[B]

The real world is your lab. You don't need R and D. You simply need observation.

[A]

Or another way we put this, you need the research lab of hard knocks. Okay.

[B]

Does that work, you think? Nice football lingo there.

[A]

Besties. You see, Jack and I have been covering business news for decades now, and there are a variety of successful products we've seen not born at a company.

[B]

The company didn't invent the idea of. They simply productized what consumers were already doing.

[A]

For example, Gillette heard that women borrowed their husband's razor in the shower. So they created a new brand for women, and that became Venus Uncrustable.

[B]

Noticed that parents had to cut the crust off the PB and J or the kids would go crazy. So they invented crustless Peanut butter and jelly, aka the Uncrustable Jack.

[A]

You've got a 43 step skincare routine. What did the Skinny Confidential do that's kind of like this?

[B]

Well, every grandma tells you that putting ice on your face in the morning, it's the oldest trick to reduce puffiness. So Lauren Bostick at Skinny Confidential productized it into an ice roller.

[A]

Yeah, these aren't accidental inventions. These are observational inventions. And now Gatorade, we think should respond to the pickle juice trend by putting.

[B]

It in a bottle and slapping the Gatorade logo on it.

[A]

That is the real world acting like an R and D lab. And you know what? It's already got product market fit for our second story. Doordash burritos, Zillow homes and Spotify music, all in chatg. Yeti's OpenAI just killed the app by putting them inside your chatbot.

[B]

Chatbots will soon be the gatekeeper to your entire Internet.

[A]

Now, Yeti's first, some breaking news. Apple is reportedly building a chatgpt like.

[B]

App to overhaul Siri coming next year. That's an eternity in artificial intelligence.

[A]

Oh, yeah, it is.

[B]

ChatGPT is gonna announce a thousand things before next year.

[A]

I mean, for example, on Monday, we covered OpenAI launching the Sora app, a new a only social media video app. Unprecedented.

[B]

The next day, OpenAI acted like kingmaker again, announcing a deal with amd that sent AMD stock up 28%.

[A]

I'm sorry, Jack. Bloomberg just calculated that OpenAI has announced a trillion dollars of data center deals.

[B]

Nicholas, one Harvard economist who used to work at the White house, says that 92% of America's GDP growth this year is AI data centers and infrastructure.

[A]

Sit down, stand up and plug me in again, Jack. ChatGPT is leading all of it.

[B]

It's me. Hi, I'm the economy. It's me.

[A]

But besties. One of OpenAI's bajillion announcements that we thought worthy of full coverage on T boy this week is this story. And what is it, Jack?

[B]

On Monday, OpenAI had their annual developer event in San Francisco and they announced apps in ChatGPT.

[A]

Now, what this means is that without leaving your chatbot, you can order from Doordash, check real estate listings on Zillow, or even listen to songs on Spotify inside ChatGPT.

[B]

Get this, Yetis. Nick thinks this was his idea.

[A]

I'm not saying that, but I'm kinda saying that, you know, like last week we were ordering pizza, a little Friday tradition since we had the baby. And I was like, molly, it took me like 12 steps and three and a half minutes just to execute a simple pizza order on Uber Eats.

[B]

Nothing upsets a San Francisco resident like too much friction to getting your pizza to your door.

[A]

All I want is the pepperoni. Well, now you could tell ChatGPT, order me three margarita pies from A16 and get them to my home ASAP.

[B]

Boom.

[A]

Done in 10 seconds.

[B]

Like a good assistant, Chat will place the order for Nick through DoorDash without Nick ever having to open the DoorDash app.

[A]

That is big. And Jack, how is that happening?

[B]

OpenAI launched a public developers kit so that any app company can integrate their app directly into ChatGPT.

[A]

Or as tech reporter Casey Newton put it, he compared this to what Facebook did back in 2007. This is OpenAI's platform play.

[B]

Remember Words with Friends and Farmville, two games you could only play within Facebook.

[A]

Well, similarly, you can now get dozens of app like services within ChatGPT.

[B]

Now, why would an app like DoorDash surrender their consumer relationship with Nick and let OpenAI be the gatekeeper to access Nick's pizza orders?

[A]

DoorDash wants those burritos and those pizza orders. Why are they doing it, Jack?

[B]

The reason is that OpenAI has 800 million weekly users and it's growing every day.

[A]

Apps have no choice, Basically no choice. ChatGPT is simply where the customer is and you gotta be where the customer be. So, Jack, what's the takeaway? Despite my grammar for our Buddies over.

[B]

At ChatGPT, you're a chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff.

[A]

Yetis, earlier this year, Jack and I noticed websites were changing their content to appeal to chatbots.

[B]

We coined the phrase A, E, O Answer engine optimization.

[A]

And last month we covered OpenAI's new direct shopping feature so you could like, buy candles from etsy directly within ChatGPT.

[B]

So we coined another phrase. Not B2B, not B2C, B to A business, to AI. That story was another reason to design your website. Not to appeal to consumers, but to appeal to chatbots.

[A]

Well, OpenAI was already cutting out websites from the human equation and now they're cutting out apps.

[B]

So we're escalating our phrase coinage. Your chatbot is becoming your chief of staff.

[A]

Besties, human experts in Google search. They used to be the gatekeepers of information. But soon your chatbot will be the ultimate gatekeeper. It'll be your chief of staff. Now, a quick word from our sponsor.

[B]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[A]

You know, Jack, something I thought about in therapy last week. If I were a therapist, I would need my own therapist.

[B]

Think of the questions, the venting, the complaints, the tears that we all bring into that leather couch.

[A]

I mean, therapist me would need a break for me, you know, relieving other people's trauma every day for work, that could be pretty traumatic.

[B]

It's secondhand trauma now.

[A]

They do get paid to hear it.

[B]

But still, I appreciate how welcoming my therapist is to hear all my issues.

[A]

Good point. Good point, Jack. Good point.

[B]

I appreciate how welcoming my therapist is to my dirty laundry.

[A]

So, besties, since October 10th is World Mental Health Day, we'd like to thank those therapists, our therapists, Better help.

[B]

Therapists have helped over 5 million people like us on every issue you could imagine.

[A]

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[A]

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com T Boy, that's BetterHelp.

[B]

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[A]

Netsuite Yetis what does the future hold for business?

[B]

Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. It's a bull market. It's a bear market. Rates will rise. Rates will fall. Inflation's up or down. Can someone invent a crystal ball?

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[A]

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[B]

Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com tboy.

[A]

That'S netsuite.com tboy netsuite.com tboy. For our third and final story, there's a brand new running sneaker challenging Nike. In fact, the man behind this shoe turned down a job at Nike.

[B]

Introducing Sponge, the one man sneaker company.

[A]

Now, Yetis, when you're covering fashion as an industry, you notice that it's led by big creative people with big personalities and big philosophies. Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Miranda Priestley, Mugatu.

[B]

Well, one fashion designer, Salehi Bembury, is known as the sultan of sneakers.

[A]

This guy has collab sneakers with Crocs, with New Balance, with, with Versace. It's across the entire spending spectrum.

[B]

And last year Nike tried to hire him, but he said, no, I'm starting my own sneaker company.

[A]

And on Wednesday it launched. It's called sponge. And 39 year old Benberry is the founder, designer and co owner of the startup.

[B]

It's not backed by a big sneaker company. He's partnering with a boutique fashion company to turn his shoe designs into shoe drops.

[A]

And his first wild sneaker dropped yesterday. You're gonna start seeing this thing around. We'll post a pic of it on our story on Instagram. More on that in a second.

[B]

First, Nick, let's go back to business school and talk barriers to entry.

[A]

Ah, barriers to entry when you're banging on that door. But you cannot get into that industry, Jack.

[B]

Sneakers have a lot of barriers to entry.

[A]

You see besties, anybody can launch a functional beverage or a makeup brand or a podcast. It's a pretty low startup equipment cost over here.

[B]

But try launching a new car or a new sneaker brand that requires way more time and way more money to invest.

[A]

High barriers to entry is why you don't see many car startups or many sneaker startups out in the world.

[B]

The upfront cost is huge just to get your first product off the assembly line. And the risk of failure is even huger. So most entrepreneurs avoid those industries.

[A]

In fact, the shoe is often cited as the most complex part of the entire fashion industry because it is more engineering than it is style.

[B]

For a shirt, for a dress, for pants, you only need a few sizes. But foot, I mean, there's dozens of different shapes of feet, okay?

[A]

And it's supporting your whole body and you need two dozen different sizes. It is a complete, completely different challenge.

[B]

It's engineering. But Ben Barry is going for it. He's taken the risk and he's actually going for it alone. Like Phil Knight did launching Nike 61 years ago.

[A]

And the first new sneaker of the new Sponge brand just Dropped yesterday.

[B]

The shoe is called Osmosis, and it's a trail ready running sneaker.

[A]

The inner sole kind of looks like a coral reef. The outer sole is like molten lava. We never really have seen anything quite like this thing.

[B]

It's giving nature. The four color choices are basically Mother Nature's color palette.

[A]

Although it also kind of looks like a cartoon spaceship as a shoe. Like, if SpongeBob SquarePants was going on a hike, he would wear this.

[B]

It stands out.

[A]

But besties, this is what we found fascinating. We just don't get many new shoe brand startups, do we, Jack?

[B]

No, we don't. Hoka and on. They launched in 2009 and 2010.

[A]

Allbirds. They came in 2016.

[B]

And now nine years later, we're finally getting another sponge launching in 2025.

[A]

So, Jack, what's the takeaway? Facing these barriers to entry.

[B]

Over at Sponge, Salehi Bembury climbed the career ladder in other people's sneakers. Now he's at the top wearing his own yeti's.

[A]

Salehi story is wild. Born in New York City, he went to Syracuse University and then took a job at Payless Shoes after college.

[B]

Payless Shoes, no offense. It's the bottom of the rung when it comes to the sneaker ladder.

[A]

It's called Payless now. He moved over to Cole Hahn eventually, and then he got a job at Adidas brand Yeezy, which is Kanye's brand. And things started going up, and by.

[B]

That time, he had the credibility to carve out permission in his contract to do collabs.

[A]

That's when Salehi started doing collabs with Crocs and New Balance. And that's when his name became known.

[B]

Along the way, he built up a million followers on Instagram and just published a coffee table book about the sneakers he's designed.

[A]

Bestie Salehi is a case study in climbing the career ladder in other people's sneakers.

[B]

Now he's at the top, finally wearing his own.

[A]

Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday?

[B]

Gatorade should productize what hardcore athletes are already drinking. Pickle juice.

[A]

Pickle juice aid. Because sometimes you don't need an R and D lab. You just need.

[B]

For our second story. Now that apps are integrating directly into ChatGPT, it's becoming the complete gatekeeper to your Internet.

[A]

Your chatbot is becoming your digital chief of staff.

[B]

And finally, Sponge is the new sneaker brand launched by a guy who Nike tried to hire.

[A]

Salehi climbed the career ladder in other people's sneakers. But now he's at the top wearing his own.

[B]

But besties. This pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.

[A]

First, government shutdown, day eight. Here is how you're gonna start feel. And you're gonna start feeling it in.

[B]

The air, actually, in the airport.

[A]

Yeah, before the air.

[B]

Because the latest update is that air traffic controllers are calling in sick rather than work without pay and without guaranteed back pay either.

[A]

So flight cancellations and delays are starting to add up nationwide.

[B]

And honestly, this is how federal government shutdowns tend to end when air travel gets sufficiently disrupted and it's frustrating to anyone flying.

[A]

And second, Amazon's next big move, prescription one medicine vending machines.

[B]

Amazon is installing digital kiosks to fulfill prescriptions without a person involved at their one medical health clinics.

[A]

You can walk up to a vending machine, tap for thytastrosal, and then boom, that thing drops down like it's a soda can.

[B]

We assume the side effect disclosures get printed out as a receipt.

[A]

Oh, that would be nice. And finally, Cheetos just launched pants specifically designed for you to wipe your fingers on.

[B]

Yeah, the pants are orange, so they.

[A]

Blend in with the Cheetos crumbs.

[B]

And they have Velcro. Velcro spots on the hips where you rub your hands when they're dirty, so.

[A]

They can hold the crumbs that you are rubbing on your legs.

[B]

But why would you want to hold the crumbs? I don't get the Velcro part.

[A]

No, no, no, no. You don't want them to fall on the ground, Jack. Cause you would let the pants absorb them. Absorb?

[B]

I don't think they're absorbing them.

[A]

Honestly, the biggest shock here is that Kenneth Cole, the fashion designer, collabed with Cheetos to make this happen. In the meantime, the napkin has been disrupted. Now time for the best fact yet. This one's a voicemail sent in by legendary yeti Dylan Steinfeld from lovely Atlanta.

[B]

Geor, Nick and Jack, following up on the story about Sharpie, which, as you mentioned on the pod, is owned by Newell Brands. Newell is headquartered in a suburb of lovely Atlanta, Georgia called Sandy Springs. Newell sits in the Queen of the King and Queen towers, which at 570 and 553ft high, are the two tallest suburban buildings in the entire United States. Shout out my Atlanta Yetis and best.

[A]

Now I understand why they always say Georgia doesn't do peaches. It does Sharpies. That's why, Jack.

[B]

570Ft. That's a skyscraper and isn't having skyscrapers the definition of being a city.

[A]

I think the suburb just became the herb. Jack. Yetis, you look fantastic today. And Jack and I got one request for you. You see, we are now in the final day to vote to win Best Business podcast.

[B]

And the voting is 27% to 27% between the best idea yet and the morning brew daily.

[A]

Oh, we are tied right now. So besties go and vote. We got a link in the episode description we'd love to pull ahead in the final minutes. You got this.

[B]

If you ignored our previous CTAs to vote, this is the one not to ignore.

[A]

Oh yeah, this is the one we really mean.

[B]

It was such a special first season. Nick and I are really proud of this series and if we won the award, it'd be frigging awesome.

[A]

We all kind of to want. Thanks so much Yetis. Jack and I appreciate the ballots and we'll see you tomorrow. And before we go, a happy 12th birthday to legendary Yeti Liam Devine from lovely Savannah, Georgia making Sharpies.

[B]

And happy birthday to Valeria in Seattle, Washington who converted her dad to become a yeti.

[A]

Welcome to the pod. And Kylie Ho from lovely Los Angeles, California introduced her buddy Matt to snacks five years ago. And now both of them are snacking and t boying. And a happy birthday to you Kylie.

[B]

And finally, a big shout out to Diane Prince who corrected us that when we said dry bar costs about 40 bucks, it's actually up to 55 bucks these days.

[A]

Full disclosure, Jack and I haven't got a blowout in a couple years now, so we didn't realize the inflation situation.

[B]

Although I'm due for a perm. This is Jack Nick on St stock of Zillow and Nike and we both own stock of Apple and Spotify. If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[A]

Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us a.

[B]

Little bit about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey we want to get to know you. It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no ding decline cards won't hurt your credit scores. If you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.

[A]

Experian.